


The Shadows of the Future

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [298]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Co-workers, Dirty Talking Steve Rogers, Hate Sex, Honestly Neither Is Steve, M/M, Mild D/s, Space Pirates, Tony Is Not A Nice Man, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 04:39:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: They’d been locked inside the tin can for almost a month before the Rogers guy said a word to him, one that wasn't an answer to a request or a stat report or some other official by-and-by and by then, Bucky was halfway to stir-crazy.





	The Shadows of the Future

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually yesterday's MM and I talked myself out of posting it--which defeats the entire purpose of an MM. Duh. So here it is, with a few pokes and prods I made today.

They’d been locked inside the tin can for almost a month before the Rogers guy said a word to him, one that wasn't an answer to a request or a stat report or some other official by-and-by and by then, Bucky was halfway to stir-crazy.

It wasn’t odd to work with a stranger. Long-haul jobs were always a crapshoot, pretty much by design; the pirates did everything at the last minute so nobody could give away their plans in advance. That was the theory, anyway, but Bucky knew from experience--hello, metal arm--that prudence was no guarantee. But the Starks were savvier than most of the pirate congloms--it was a family operation, for one thing, and that helped. It helped, too, that Tony Stark was smarter than the other Heads, savvier, and nine times as ruthless; try to fool him once and Europa help you, you’d be paying for that shit slowly and painfully until the end of recorded time. His wages were high, better than all but the most desperate, and he liked loyalty, even returned it sometimes. And best of all, he didn't get snippy when Bucky worked gigs for other groups.

“You have to make a living, Barnes,” he’d said, one hand on Bucky’s cold shoulder. “I get it. And you’ve always been a man of discretion, haven’t you?”

They’d gotten smashed and handsy more than once, usually right after a job, when Bucky would stroll in with hard cash and ore diamonds and Stark would pour them out on his desk and bend Bucky over it and Bucky would come surrounded by the smell of other people’s riches and the palms of his hands cut by the tiny, sharp rainbows that he’d risked his life and Tony’s money for and when it was over, he’d be well-fucked and richer and in his experience, life didn’t get much better than that.

Part of the deal, though, in working for the Starks was that he never had any say over his second would be, who he’d be sailing towards the great back of beyond with and hopefully back. He had to take what he was given--Tony’s motto in all things--and make of it what he could. Most of the people he’d travelled with, lured by the Stark name and the money upfront, he’d found, were real keen to do the same.

There was a kind of cameradie that sailing necessitated, even when you were working straight and not for some blackguard or other. It was you, your second, your cargo, and the ship, that was it, and even if you didn’t come out the other side best friends or some shit, it was generally understood that a captain and his second worked better when they got along. Sometimes, that meant sex--a lot of times, in Bucky’s world, it did--but other times it meant that you agreed to eat meals together and talk about things other than the pressure sensor that was FUBAR’d or the government cruiser you’d just managed to avoid. It meant, fundamentally, that you treated the other person as just that: not just a coworker, but a fucking human being.

Which made the stuck-up prick on this trip an aberration, fuck, in any number of ways.

His name was Steve, and that was basically all Bucky had gotten out of him. He was big and gorgeous and silent and he made Bucky angrier every day that went by. His job wasn’t the problem; he was a fine engineer. The ship they were on was on the older side and prone to foul, random acts of temper. The last time Bucky had taken her out, she’d repeatedly tried to throw the stardrive into reverse and the despite the best efforts of his second, Nat, they’d been a week late to the drop and another week late getting back. He hadn’t gotten Tony’s dick when they returned that time, not even a smack on the ass. Just a glare and a few choice words: “Just so we’re clear, Barnes, Mz. Romanov won’t be coming back.”

Bucky liked Nat. Tony knew it. Bucky wondered if that was the real reason Tony was mad.

It wasn’t like they had a thing, anything official, but everybody knew the Starks were territorial, especially about shit that didn’t belong to them.

“Yet,” Tony when Bucky’d had the audacity to point out that him getting ginned up about a riot at some kronen mine he didn’t own two sectors over was a serious waste of resources. “It doesn’t belong to me, _ yet._”

Bucky had reached back to stroke Tony’s hip. “What the fuck do you want with a kronen mine? Nobody’s buying that shit anymore. Insen’s half the price and burns at a way higher efficiency.”

“Mmmm, I know,” Tony’d said, his breath in Bucky’s ear. “But what would happen if insen’s suddenly got very difficult to buy? Then everybody would want kronen, wouldn’t they? And if I had it, well then”--he shifted his hips, stiff again at Bucky’s back--“just like you, my boy, they’d all want it from me.”

So Buck hadn’t been surprised a few weeks later, not really, when some mysterious mold had spread through half the insen stocks in the quadrant and lo and behold, there was Tony Stark, everybody’s savior, proud owner of a now-efficient kronen mine. Nor was he surprised when he’d shown up for his next hauling gig to find a nobody onboard. And that the guy was quiet the first few days, sure, ok, fine; everybody took their own time easing into these things. But after a month of radio silence, of barely being acknowledged on those rare occasions when they were in the same room, Bucky was pretty fucking sure that Steve’s problem was wasn’t shyness. Nope. He was just a straight up snooty bitch.

He was slumming it, that Bucky was sure of. His hands were too neat, his clothes too primly stitched. And he didn’t eat like a sailor, either: he lingered at the little table in the messroom, took his time, drank his wine while he paged leisurely through his personal pad, reading something that looked suspiciously like a book.

Bucky didn’t trust people who had time to read. He never had, even as a kid; he’d had calluses on his hands by the time he was five. Now that he could have squeezed some in, maybe, he didn’t give a shit about it. Couldn’t grok people who did.

Yeah, Steve came from old cash, the hard stuff. Bucky could feel it. So what the fuck was a guy like that doing here?

He woke up in a cold sweat one off-shift thinking _ narc _, but no way, Steve couldn’t be. The Starks’ eyes were everywhere, their quick, dirty fingers, too, so he couldn’t be a cuckoo in the nest. Or, he told himself, digging under his bunk for rotgut, if he was a narc, he had to be a fucking filthy one. Or a stupid one. Or some true believer who thought he was doing his duty to knock the Starks down a peg.

He snorted into the darkness and took another fat sip. _ Yeah_, he thought. _ Good luck with that_.

It was kind of entertaining at first, the man’s whole mystery vibe, but after four weeks of no talking, Bucky was bored as hell and seriously, seriously pissed. Who the hell did this rich plebe think he was, gliding about all silent around Bucky’s ship? Bucky didn’t have much in life, but when she was in the solar wind, he had her, he had this, and he’d be damned if some phony asshole was gonna mess with any of the good vibes that before had always been part and parcel with that.

_ Dick_, he thought, banging his way down from the bridge an hour before Steve came on-shift. _ I’ll show you who's ship this is._

Steve was, predictably, in the mess, nose buried in his personal pad like an asshole, food half eaten and wine barely touched. What the fuck. He didn’t even look up when Bucky steamed in.

“I don’t know what your problem is, Rogers,” Bucky barked, “but I’m real fucking tired of it.”

Steve’s blond head rose. His blue eyes were smooth. “No problem here, Captain.”

“Really? I’m gonna have to disagree.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because! You’ve been on my boat for 30 goddamn days and you haven’t said one word to me other than what’s been required.”

“So?”

“So I’m getting tired of listening to silence.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Huh. So it’s your problem, not mine.”

“My ship, my rules.”

“It’s a rule that we have to be friendly?” Steve said sharply. “Pretty sure that wasn’t in the contract. Anyway, I don’t work for you. The name I signed under was Tony Stark’s, not yours.”

Bucky could feel the heat in his face, the way his lips were turning back in a snarl. “I don’t fucking care about some piece of paper you played with back in some tony spaceport, Rogers. What I’m talking about is what’s happening here.”

Steve set down his pad and reached cooly for his wine. “Which is what, exactly?”

“We’re together for the next five weeks or so, whether you fucking like it or not, and I don’t know why you’re here or what the hell you think you’re playing at, but while you’re on my ship, you’ll gonna treat me like I’m an actual human and not part of the machinery!” He was yelling, the words ringing off durasteel. God, it felt awesome. “Days we’ve been stuck in here, _ days _, and not once have you asked me a question or said anything friendly or acted like there was anyone on board except you.”

There was a crack on Steve’s face, something raw and a little jagged. “It’s not my job to entertain you, Barnes. That’s what the gods made porn for, or shit, go read a damn book if you can! Might do you some true goddamn good.”

Bucky snatched the pad from the table and hurled it at the wall; it shattered with a glorious bang. “Fuck you.”

Then Steve was on his feet and Steve’s hands were dug into the front of Bucky’s jump, the smoothweave crumpling between his fingers. His voice was calm but his eyes were...not. “Barnes,” he said, icy. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?” Bucky’s pulse was in his throat. “Surely mommy and daddy can afford to replace it. Hell, your people probably own a whole library, don’t you?”

Steve snarled and slammed Bucky back against the bulkhead. “Don’t throw your classist bullshit in my face, _ Captain_. I know it feels good to you, huh, but my family’s station doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole.”

“I’m not--”

“You are! God, I thought you were a professional, Barnes. I thought you did trips like this all the damn time.”

“I do!”

“Yeah?” A vicious shake. “How is that, exactly? You always treat your seconds this way? You always beg them to pay attention to you?”

“I’m not begging.”

“Oh, yes you are.”

All at once, Bucky’s fury parted long enough for him to tune back into his body: to the sting in his shoulders and the bruises blooming on his ass and the--what the fucking fuck?--twitch of eager steel in his pants and it must have shown on his face, what he was feeling, because Steve’s hips kicked and he grinned, all white teeth and blue-eyed menace and something vaguely triumphant.

“So that’s it.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is, Captain.” Steve edged closer--he hadn’t realized there was any room left--and scraped his teeth against Bucky’s neck. “Tell me it is.”

Humiliation in his head now, stupid shame. A fierce and undeniable want. “Stop it.”

Steve licked at his throat, pressed himself against Bucky’s hip. “You’re not mad because I haven’t talked to you. That’s bullshit. You’re mad that I haven’t touched you. You’re dying for somebody’s hand on your cock.”

“No.”

“Mmmmm. A tongue in your ass, then. Bent over this table with your legs spread and my face between your cheeks.”

Bucky’s body arched and his hands were on Steve’s shoulders, hell. When the fuck had they gotten there? “For fuck's sake, shut up!”

Steve groaned, his hips grinding. “Get you just wet enough,” he said. “Dry enough so I still have to work to get inside you, still have to bear down on your sweet little ass and just _ push_.”

This was bad news. This was fucking fantastic. This was happening whether it was good business or not.

“That so?” he snapped in Steve’s ear, his hands clawing, scraping. “Big talk from you all of a sudden, Rogers. Something tells me that’s all you are.”

There was a sound of fabric tearing, of Steve panting, and only when the cool air hit his chest did he ram his mouth into Steve’s and get a tongue for his trouble and swear and swear and swear and it wasn’t until he was clutching the table with metal and flesh and Steve was buried inside him, that he wondered if Tony would find out about this, if Tony would ever know, and if he ever did, Bucky would never see the stars again, never see light again, and somehow as the peak of pleasure rushed closer that thought only made the now better, brighter, because who knew what the shadows of the future would bring?

“Go on,” Steve murmured against the sweaty curve of his shoulder, his fist stripping Bucky’s dick. “Oh, you’re right there, aren’t you, Captain? Shit. Come on, give it up for me. Just for me.”


End file.
